Now I think we can all agree that Auntie Rosie did herself a wee bit too much swearing in the recap of last night’s show. Okay, way too much swearing. But here’s the deal: tonight there will be NO SWEARING at all. None. I swear. Bother, I just swore, although that sort of swearing should be okay, shouldn’t it? I’m confused. On with the show!

Tonight we are at Aron and Vanessa’s. They have 72 hours to renovate the restaurant. Tom says there were a few things that looked a bit tattered. Scott thinks the light coloured seats were a mistake.

So we see Aron and Vanessa talking about paint and wallpaper – yeah that’s great and all, but I don’t watch reno shows for a reason. I find them boring. Isn’t this supposed to be a bloody cooking show? Get on with the fucking cooking! Oops, that didn’t last long. Slaps self – hard. Sigh.

Scott says the first time they came to Aron and Vanessa’s restaurant, they gave them fairly beige food. He visits them with the food for Round 2.

For entreé he expects a sophisticated version of the classic Aussie meat pie, but made with chicken.

For the main course, surf and turf, using bugs and fillet.

And for dessert, they will need to jazz up the lamington.

Aron immediately decides to makes single chicken pies with Asian flavours, and his main will be Italian style. He will deconstruct the lamington making a chocolate panna cotta, a coconut sorbet, a sponge and some strawberry jam.

They have 90 minutes to prepare the meal.

Vanessa says she’s gotta change her stress to productive excitement. She asks Aron should she leave the hairy bits on the spring onions, making me giggle insanely.

Aron has some sort of cramp. Who the fuck cares. Now that’s not worthy of a slap, is it? I ask the world and the world says no. Thank you, world.

The judges arrive. They think the place now looks fantastic. The soul of the old restaurant is here but it’s more modern and more contemporary. They note that the leopard skin barstool covers have gone. They joke about where the leopard skin has gone to. Cue shot of Christina and Tania walking along the footpath, with Tania wearing a lowcut animal print top. Christina says the makeover is to her palate. I do not vomit. Feel free to applaud.

Aron is worried that he put raw chicken into the pie, so cuts one open a few minutes before they are ready. It is only a wee bit pink so he puts them back in the oven until full time.

The chicken and shiitake pies are served with tamarind sauce.

Lauren is used to pies. But with tomato sauce.

Christina says Aron looks worried. She sounds pretty happy to say so.

Nola says it’s a dry pie. So put some sauce on it, ya berk.

Philippe says it looks like a small boob.

Christina, being another ten year old also mentions the small boob, but does say her palate liked it. Her palate likes small boobs?

Emi liked it. Lauren says that pie is not a pretty enough word.

Scott says the pastry is perfectly cooked and the tamarind sauce is packed full of flavour. Tom says you nailed the three “Ts”: taste, technique and something else that starts with T that escapes my imperfect memory.

They cook, cook, cook the mains.

Nola expects more than just steak and a bug on the plate.

Oh, he’s overcooking some of the steak for Nola. He’s covering it in gravy. That’s actually nice of him.

It does all look a bit boring though. Just steak, bug and polenta with some jus poured around the side, or over the steak if you are Nola. I suppose the polenta makes it Italian? Hmm.

Emi is not sure ½ bug is enough.

Pascal says it’s very safe.

Tom tells them they were instructed to take it up a notch. The steak was good but what was the jus doing on the plate? The garlic butter went well with the bug, but the jus overpowered it all. It was a bit of a come down. Scott asks where was the wow factor. He expected perfect steak and they did that. But he tells them this shows a chink in their armour and the table agreed.

Philippe tells the table he has never had a lamington in his life. Much surprise.

Vanessa doesn’t even know if the panna cottas will be set. If they are not, she will be going home. Sorry, thought I was back on Masterchef for a minute there. No, she says they will be fucked, I mean rooted, I mean screwed. Oh dear. Smacked meself again, on the other side of the poor old face. Maybe the smacking is good for the circulation and will do something about these pesky wrinkles that I am pretending don’t exist? And of course they are fine. (The panna cottas, not my wrinkles.) As Aron says, they liked the tits for their entreé, so he hopes they’ll like ’em for their dessert too. He makes the sponges in the microwave.

They serve the dessert.

Christina says it’s a big mess all over the plate. She gets it, but she was hoping for more of a lamington. Oh fuck off. No smacks for that.

Tania thinks the idea was amazing. And it’s not often Tania gets to have an opinion of her own.

Philippe says his first lamington experience was amazing.

Tom says it looked attractive, but he could have done without the smear. If you can’t eat it, don’t put it on the plate. The panna cotta is great. He wanted more sponge, but the jam is great and the whole thing was full of wit and imagination. Scott says that when he found out the lamington would be deconstructed, alarm bells began to ring. But he would come back to Rocksalt again and again for this.

Time to score. There will be no secret scoring. Their scores will be given direct to the host team. Ha ha ha ha. It should be ever thus. The teams will each score out of 10, and the judges out of 30.

Philippe and Pascal – 7/10

Emi and Marie – 7/10

Christina and Tania – 7/10

Lauren and Nola – 9/10

Total – 30/40

Tom – 24/30

Scott – 23/30

Grand total – 77/100

Aron thinks they have a 100% chance of winning this. Can my eyes roll any further around?

Lauren and Nola are next.

I’d apologize for breaking my word on the swearing, but I’m just not sorry. 😆